Compile Perl cpan module sapnwrfc from source code

I’d like to describe the prerequisites and the steps how to build the Perl CPAN module sapnwrfc with the Strawberry Perl environment under Windows 7 x64. It should work also for all later Windows versions like 8, 8.1 and 10.

I use Strawberry Perl 5.24.1.1 64 bit but it should also work with older versions.

It took me some hourse to succeed with several tries (32 vs. 64 bit installation of Perl, SAP NW RFC SDK, MinGW vs. Microsoft C compiler). So I hope some will benefit from my findings.

Simple example to test the RFC connection

Simple example from http://search.cpan.org/dist/sapnwrfc/sapnwrfc-cookbook.pod

use strict;
use warnings;
use utf8;
use sapnwrfc;

SAPNW::Rfc->load_config('sap.yml');
my $conn = SAPNW::Rfc->rfc_connect;

my $rd = $conn->function_lookup("RPY_PROGRAM_READ");
my $rc = $rd->create_function_call;
$rc->PROGRAM_NAME("SAPLGRFC");

eval {
$rc->invoke;
};
if ($@) {
    die "RFC Error: $@\n";
}

print "Program name: ".$rc->PROG_INF->{'PROGNAME'}."\n";
my $cnt_lines_with_text = scalar grep(/LGRFCUXX/, map { $_->{LINE} } @{$rc->SOURCE_EXTENDED});
$conn->disconnect;

Remarks

Install a current Strawberry Perl 64 bit package from http://strawberryperl.com. In my case it was 5.24.1.1.

Download the current version of the SAP NW RFC SDK x64 bit from https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/softwarecenter

You can find it with the following trace: Support Packages and Patches => By Category => Additional Components => SAP NW RFC SDK => SAP NW RFC SDK 7.20

In my case the current version was 7.20 PL42 x64.

Extract the downloaded file with sapcar -xvf NWRFC_42-20004568.SAR

I renamed the folder to C:\nwrfcsdk_x64

Create .def and .a files for the MinGW compiler / linker with the following commands in the directory C:\nwrfcsdk_x64:

gendef *.dll
dlltool --dllname icuin34.dll --def icuin34.def --output-lib icuin34.a
dlltool --dllname icudt34.dll --def icudt34.def --output-lib icudt34.a
dlltool --dllname icuuc34.dll --def icuuc34.def --output-lib icuuc34.a
dlltool --dllname libsapucum.dll --def libsapucum.def --output-lib libsapucum.a
dlltool --dllname libicudecnumber.dll --def libicudecnumber.def --output-lib libicudecnumber.a
dlltool --dllname sapnwrfc.dll --def sapnwrfc.def --output-lib sapnwrfc.a

In the dircectory C:\nwrfcsdk_x64\lib the following files should exist:

icudt34.a
icudt34.def
icudt34.dll
icuin34.a
icuin34.def
icuin34.dll
icuuc34.a
icuuc34.def
icuuc34.dll
libicudecnumber.a
libicudecnumber.def
libicudecnumber.dll
libsapucum.a
libsapucum.def
libsapucum.dll
libsapucum.lib
sapdecfICUlib.lib
sapnwrfc.a
sapnwrfc.def
sapnwrfc.dll
sapnwrfc.lib

Start command prompt with cmd.exe and start the program cpan.

Start the command get sapnwrfc to download the Perl module sapnwrfc from CPAN.

Leave the cpan environment with the exit command. Change directory to C:\Strawberry\cpan\build\sapnwrfc-0.37-0.

Build the Makefile(s) with the following command. Adapt the folder names according to your setup.

perl Makefile.PL --source=C:\nwrfcsdk_x64 --addlibs "C:\nwrfcsdk_x64\lib\sapnwrfc.a C:\nwrfcsdk_x64\lib\libsapucum.a"

Run the commands dmake and dmake install to build and install the module.

Copy the files from C:\nwrfcsdk_x64\lib to C:\Strawberry\perl\site\lib\auto\SAPNW\Connection.